This week, CalWatchDog‘s Steven Greenhut and John Seiler both join me on the show. We’ll be joined by Richard Winger, Editor and Publisher of Ballot Access Blog.

Update: May 18, 2011: We’re not posting the podcast for this show due to technical errors from our remote locations. There was a lot of breakup and interference and the audio quality is not up to any acceptable standard. We’ll be back next week, same time!

Tonight we’ll talk about the budget. What is in, what’s out, and what’s up in the air. Steven Greenhut has been up and down the state speaking with concerned citizens about the budget deficit and the costs of government public employees, their salaries and defined retirement pensions and benefits. We’ll get his insights and take your calls. A new ruling by a California Appeals Court orders Sacramento County’s pension system to make public the names and pension pay for 8,500 retirees. L.A., Orange, San Diego and San Bernardino counties, among others, may have to follow suit. Is it binding or will it be delayed by appeal to a higher court? Who’s for the ruling, and who is opposed to it?

Card Check for farm workers passed both the CA State Senate and Assembly and now goes to Governor Jerry Brown for his signature. Farm workers, workers who earn among the least for the hardest type of labor will now be defenseless against forced unionization. All that is required for a union to prevail is for 50 percent plus 1 worker signed cards to be “submitted,” and each card is valid for up to a year. No election is necessary. This bill was sponsored by the United Farm Workers Union.

Are reporters indignant that farm workers have been robbed of their right to a secret ballot? No! How do they report it? “The state Legislature has passed a bill that would give farm workers an alternative to secret ballots in deciding whether to join a union.” How nice of them! To give the workers an “alternative.” Al Capone couldn’t put it any nicer.

Democratic Latino voters in urban communities will likely ignore or applaud this new law, not recognizing the gross infringement of civil liberties on an entire community stripped of their right to a secret ballot.

Richard Winger, the editor and publisher of Ballot Access Blog joins us to discuss the special election that is today, with some results coming in before our show is up, and also to discuss the impact of Prop 14 passed this past November on the outcome of this election. He’ll also talk with us briefly about Americans Elect, group that claims it will get on the ballot for Elections in November of 2012 in all fifty states, (and Puerto Rico?)

My mission for this radio program is (I quote here the mission statement of The Future of Freedom Foundation. I agree with their stated mission, by which I am inspired and for which I stand, to the best of my ability), “to advance freedom by providing an uncompromising moral and economic case for individual liberty, free markets, private property, and limited government.” I am a stand and cause for liberty, freedom and prosperity for all people; a stand for vibrant and innovative small businesses that create jobs, that in the process of prospering, nurture and support creative and dynamic culture, in the work place, and in our personal lives. Thank you for supporting our enterprise, by listening, sponsoring, and or sharing this post with others. I value your patronage.

It’s a pleasure to share this program with CalWatchDog’s team of government watch dogs and the great investigative work they produce!

Tuesday nights live on Gadfly Radio in Southern California or where ever you are. California is the land of beauty and unlimited possibility because of the abundance of our greatest capital resource, our human resources, when we get it right. Join us.

Or you can listen to a podcast later, if you miss the live call-in show by clicking on the player below:

Update: May 18, 2011: We’re not posting the podcast for this show due to technical errors from our remote locations. There was a lot of breakup and interference and the audio quality is not up to any acceptable standard. We’ll be back next week, same time!

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The status quo of education in the U.S. is destructive to our Nation, and to ignore this truth is to be numb, unconscious or in denial of reality.

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament."--A Nation At Risk - April 1983

Drug War Clock for Current Year

Police arrested an estimated 858,408 persons for cannabis violations in 2009. Of those charged with cannabis violations, approximately 89 percent were charged with possession only.
Source: Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation Your tax dollars at work--but for whom?

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Dedicated to considerations of justice and the pursuit of goodness… "to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth." --Plato on Socrates